Hi from Sarah — 12 weeks in, HDL dipped?

Welcome. My HDL dipped too when trigs fell.

How was sleep before vs after the zone 2? That might explain more than almonds.

Sleep got worse first, then better around week 10. I was doing zone 2 too late.

Late cardio wrecks me too. Moving it before noon fixed my sleep more than any supplement.

That HDL dip might be the almonds replacing other fats. What did your saturated fat intake look like?

My 12-week panel looked eerily like that — LDL 141→89, trigs 118→74, and HDL did the same annoying thing, 46→41. I'm 44, about 7 months in now, and the part nobody warned me about is that HDL seems to lag everything else. Mine sat in the low 40s the whole time I was dropping weight fast, then crept back to 47-48 once the scale leveled off and I was eating a bit more normally again. So I stopped treating a single HDL number as a verdict. The other thing that bit me: my draws weren't consistent — one was after a 16-hour fast and an awful night's sleep, and that one read 5 points lower on HDL than the next one at the same lab. Now I book the same 8am slot, same 12-hour fast, same lab every time. Random question since sleep is one of your goals — how's your sleep actually tracking, because for me the deep-sleep hours improved around week 10 and that coincided with the HDL recovering, no idea if it's causal or just both things settling down.

Sleep was the hidden variable for me, not the almonds: I was getting 6h10 most nights and my HDL sat at 41 even while trigs dropped, then I moved dinner from 8:45 to 6:30 and added a 10-min post-dinner walk, sleep crept to 7h20 over about 8 weeks, and next panel HDL went 41→47. Weird reversal: LDL bounced from 88 to 94 in that same stretch, so I quit treating one number as the scoreboard and now log bedtime/wake time next to labs. Are you tracking sleep duration, or just how rested you feel? If you’re waking at 3am, that’s where I’d look before tweaking food again.

My HDL did the same nosedive while I was losing fast: week 6 I was down 11 lbs, HDL 47→39, and my other numbers looked great, which made me weirdly annoyed. The reversal came when I stopped chasing the scale for a month—held weight within 2 lbs for weeks 14–18, kept 8k steps, added two 25-min band/bodyweight sessions after work, and cut my usual 2–3 Friday beers to one—and HDL came back to 46 by week 20 while the rest stayed put. For me it looked less like a cardio thing and more like a moving-target/deficit plus alcohol thing. If you were still dropping ~1 lb/wk when they drew the second panel, I’d be curious whether it settles once weight is stable 3–4 weeks; if you were already stable, I’d look at hydration and whether it was a fasted draw. What was your weekly loss rate around then?

My trig/HDL ratio went from 2.4 to 1.7 while my HDL actually dropped from 47 to 41, and my cardiologist barely glanced at the HDL number — said when trigs are falling that fast, the ratio is what he watches. What surprised me was that my HDL didn't creep back up until I'd been at maintenance weight for about 10 weeks, not during the loss phase, so your 43 might just be a temporary floor. One thing I'd check: were you fasted the same number of hours for both draws? I did a 14-hour fast for one and a 10-hour for the next, and my HDL read 5 points lower on the shorter fast — my PCP said hydration and fasting length can swing it a bit. Not medical advice, just my n=1.

I lift 4x and prioritize protein/sleep too. The thing that moved my HDL wasn’t cardio volume — it was dietary fat. I was so focused on protein that I let fat drop stupidly low, and my HDL slid. Added back olive oil, salmon, whole eggs while shifting toward maintenance/recomp, and it climbed back over a few months. Are you still in a deficit, or starting to reverse diet? And what’s your fat intake actually averaging? That’s the piece I’d track next.

One thing I haven't seen anyone mention: HDL seems to follow dietary fat more than I expected. When I slashed fat to cut calories, mine went 52→44 over about three months; bringing back olive oil, nuts, and tinned sardines (cheap, kids won't touch them) nudged it back to 48 by month six. In the trials a small HDL dip usually isn't the marker they focus on — it's noisy. Did your fat intake change a lot when you started, or mostly portions and timing?

Sarah, the thing I wish I’d known: my HDL was lowest during active loss, but it looked better once I held my weight steady for about 8–10 weeks. I lost 38, regained 25, now back at it, so I get the panic. This time I stopped comparing a 12-week draw to my old baseline and just tracked the trend. Are you still actively losing right now, or have you been holding steady for a bit? That timing made a bigger difference in my numbers than any one food swap.

Tbh sarah, did you get ApoB or non-HDL on that same panel? I ask because my HDL did a similar dip (48→40) while I was lifting, sleeping, and tracking, but my ApoB fell from 92 to 68. My PCP cared way more about that shift than the HDL alone. Also—same lab, fasting, and no recent cold or inflammation? My HDL was 6 points lower on a draw after a virus, then back to baseline on a repeat. Are your other lipids moving in the same direction?